Hughton on Barney double

Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs) Football Club is located in North London. The club is also known as Spurs. Tottenham's home ground is White Hart Lane. The club motto is Audere est Facere (To dare is to do).

Chris Hughton reserved a special mention for striker Lee Barnard following his two-goal show for the reserves against Wimbledon on Monday evening.

Recently departed reserve team coach Colin Calderwood paid tribute in pre-season to the always unstinting shift the 19-year-old puts in whenever he plays and predicted that Lee would be among the goals this season.

Chris, in charge of the second string for the last two games, is in agreement with Colin's sentiments and the Billericay boy has now chipped in with three goals in as many games.

"We've always thought that about Lee," revealed Chris. "Striker is a difficult position - you are always going to have the highs and lows of playing there.

"Lee is one who we have always known can have presence as a centre forward, he is a hard working lad who doesn't have much fear in his game - you always know he is going to challenge and put himself about.

"It's the run of the ball, can he put himself in a position where he can be as consistent as perhaps what we need him to be and get the goals from there? You look at the performance from him here and it was excellent, not just the goals, his all-round contribution was superb."

Lee's goal ratio was reduced by a lengthy wrist injury last term and also the fact that he is a player often assigned to drop off the front to link the midfield to the attack. Chris views this as a positive in his game which has enabled him to polish his ball collecting technique.

"There is a big improvement in his game. If you are a player that is going to come off the front, or a player that leads the line and occasionally comes off the front, it is about how good your receiving skills are when the ball comes to you.

"Coming deep means you are going to receive an awful lot more into feet and get difficult balls. When you get quality passes it is fine and that is going to be easier, but you will get the difficult ones.

"It is a case of how many of them you can actually hold on to. I have to say that this is probably the biggest improvement in Lee's game - his percentage rate of keeping hold of the ball when he comes off the front."